Of Candles and Chaos
by alwaysflying
Summary: So he walked in and thought the candlelit dinner was for him. Well, it was an honest mistake.


Roger lays the plates out on the table, the tiny birthday candle glowing from its imaginary candlestick (inside a coffee mug, taped down to prevent a fire), and takes a step back.

_Perfect._

It's gorgeous, suitably impressive for Mimi. It's been four months since they've been steadily together – a fight over what was either laundry or alcohol erupted into a long-term "postponement" of their relationship. Yet Roger still loves her, or thinks he does. The best way to impress her, he has decided, would be to adorn his table with candlelight, a single rose, and the cheapest expensive-looking meal he could find. The apartment's lights dimmed and Mark out doing something else, all Roger can do now is wait.

Truth be told, he isn't entirely certain if Mimi will appreciate it, or even if she will come upstairs. He has detected a pattern that every third day, she comes up to the loft and tries to start up an awkward conversation with Roger and Mark. Today being the eighth third day in a row since this pattern begun, Roger can only pray that she will decide to come upstairs.

Ah! Footsteps!

Roger is all ready to declare "fuck this," shove everything off the table and pose nude for Mimi on the empty table when, all of a sudden, the door creaks open and in walks Mark Cohen.

He looks just short of miserable, with mud splattered over his blue-and-white plaid shirt and corderoy jacket, and his boots, pulled up to just below the knees, drip slushy tracks all over the floor. Roger winces. _Yes,_ he thinks to himself bitterly, _girls love mud tracks_. From his experience with Mimi, personally, Roger knows that she doesn't care – but in this instance, he wants everything to be perfect.

After dumping his camera on the couch, Mark's eyes raise to find the source of the dim lighting. When he lays his eyes on the table, illuminated by a candle, his jaw drops. "Oh, _Roger_," Mark whispers. "Oh, Roger. For… for me?"

"Um…" stammers Roger, turning to face his roommate. "Um. What?"

Mark tilts his head. "Is this," he begins, enunciating each word, "for me?"

Roger, looking very much like a deer in the headlights, spins around. _Fuck_. He manages to stutter, "Well, um, technically, Mark, what's mine is yours, and I'm sure that nobody really minds sharing with you, you're so agreeable about most things, so, um, so yeah, it's for you. I mean, I guess. Well… yeah, it's yours, I guess. Kind of."

Utterly puzzled, Mark pulls out a chair and is seated. "I'm speechless," he murmurs to himself. "Just speechless."

All of a sudden, Roger is hit by the most bizarre thought he has ever harbored before. _Why not play along?_ he wonders wildly, and like the gentleman he pretends to be in Mimi's presence, Roger takes Mark's chair and scoots it closer to the table. Mark, mouth slightly agape with shock and thrill, only stares at his roommate.

"I can't believe you'd do this for me," Mark is still saying. "I don't know anyone who would do this for me. Why would anybody…?"

Roger, heart punctured by a single crack, shakes his head. "Come on, Mark," he says, trying to lighten the mood. "It's no big deal. Hey, you're funny, you're kinda cute, and you're smart. Why aren't girls all over you?" _Or guys_, he adds in his mind, still deeply considering the look of delight on Mark's face upon being told (not in so many words) that yes, this dinner is for him.

Mark is again startled. "No, I'm not," he insists. "That's you, Rog… you know I couldn't hold a candle to you." Making a face as though mustering up the courage to ask his next inquiry, Mark softly wonders, "Um… what happened to Mimi? Are you… over her?"

Without knowing quite what to say, Roger briefly sits in silence. "I don't know," he says at last, because he doesn't, because Mark looks great in the candlelight and because Mimi is sort of a bitch anyway, but sexy and great and fiery and he can't imagine not being with her.

"Oh," Mark says mildly. "Oh. Okay."

Roger shakes his head. "You don't have anything to worry about, Mark," he tells his heartbroken friend. "We'll always be buddies, right?"

Mark says nothing.

"I just thought," he says carefully, "that when you made this dinner, I just thought that maybe you meant something by it." His voice is a mumble, a low admission of expectations despite his fear of being hated by Roger. _Oh, god_, he thinks in a panic. _What if Roger does hate me?_ He tries to conceal a shudder but fails miserably, and just sits, his legs folded up on the chair as he rests his head against the wall.

Roger shakes his head. "Mark," he says slowly. "Look, this dinner… was originally for, um, well, it was for…"

There is a knock at the door, and the clickety-clap of familiar heels brushes against the rusty stairwell leading directly to the loft.

"Mimi," Mark and Roger chorus. Not knowing what else to do, the latter heaves himself up to answer the door, to hushedly whisper to Mimi that this is a bad time – but when Mimi waltzes into the main room, ignoring Roger's protests, Roger looks back.

And Mark is gone, blond hair vanished in the flurry of a closed door and the rush of air seeping through the window.

"Mimi," Roger says regretfully, "now's a really bad time."

Because Mimi has had her share of moments like these – although none involving an impromptu candlelit dinner with her newly-homosexual roommate – she says not a word and merely exits. Her hair bounces against the back of her neck, but Roger is instead drawn to the gentle creaking of Mark's bed. Reflexively, instinctively, he finds himself making his way to the bedroom. Gently, Roger raps his knuckles against the door. There is a squeak from inside, followed by Mark's voice: "Come in."

"Hey," says Roger, and he settles down on his roommate's bed. "What's up?"

Mark stares at his feet. "Look, Roger, I'm sorry for how I reacted. I just hoped… well, you know what I hoped. Look, if you want me to find a new apartment, it's really no big deal, I didn't mean to spring that on you that way. I'm sorry."

Startled, Roger widens his eyes. "Hey, what do you mean, move out?" he asks, tilting Mark's chin up. "Why would you move out?"

Mark merely stammers, "I – I thought that's what you'd want." His voice trembles. "I have this stupid crush on you, and I don't want to be an inconvenience… you know?"

Too shocked for words, Roger turns away from Mark. "I wouldn't do that," he mutters. "I wouldn't kick you out."

"But I'm a _slut_!" Mark exclaims, and squeezes his eyes shut. "If you hate me, I understand."

"I don't hate you," Roger announces firmly, and with a smile and a shrug, jokes, "And Maureen's a slut, but I don't hate her, do I?"

Mark shakes his head. "It's not the same," he mumbles. "She doesn't try to score with you when she knows you don't like her, or even her gender. Even though you do." Mark tilts his head, then mutters, "You know what I mean."

Roger decides to brush that matter aside for now and lays his hands on Mark's shoulders. "Mark," he says firmly. "_Listen_. I don't hate you. I _couldn't_ hate you. And… as for love…"

Mark trembles. "I know you don't love me," he whispers. "Don't deny it."

"I do," Roger says swiftly. "As a friend."

"That's not what I mean," Mark tells him desperately. "I'm not like that, I'm fucked up, not like you…"

Roger double-takes. "You're fucked up because you like a guy?"

"No!" Mark yells. "Because it's _you_! Because you're so incredible and I know I couldn't compare to you, but I still have a stupid crush on you. Then again," he adds bitterly, "who wouldn't?"

Roger tries to choke out a hollow laugh. "Well, I _am_ perfect," he teases. Mark does not react, but continues to gaze across the room at his unwound camera.

"No, listen, Mark," Roger insists. "Look. Okay, I'm with Mimi right now, and I didn't think that was going to change, and _yes,_ the dinner was for her, but still, you're my best friend. And… well…"

He is silenced by the shuffling as Mark, unable to bear the monotony, heaves himself up and snatches his camera up from the floor. He settles back on the bed, his cheeks flushed. "Sorry," he mumbles, but Roger grabs the camera and sets it aside on a shelf that, admittedly, Mark cannot quite reach.

"Mark, okay, pay attention," Roger says sternly, and flinches when he realizes that he sounds like a high school teacher. "I don't… I don't love you that way. But… but… but there's something about you that just makes me wonder if maybe I _could_. You know?"

"No," Mark whispers. "Me? No."

Roger shakes his head. "I never considered loving you," he says, and it is the truth. "But Mimi can be a whiny bitch, and she can complain and yell and be way too talkative in bed, and all of her bad qualities… when I see you, I know you don't have any of them. You're solid. Constant. Like a rock, like someone I can fall back on."

He pauses, trying to figure out exactly how to phrase his next thought.

"And… and I think that's what a partner is supposed to be."

Mark is not a terribly emotional person. He does not cry or giggle or smile without good reason, and surely, it is immensely difficult to find him so moved by anything – anything! – short of a film. Yet here, nothing stops Mark from having the most contorted expression on his face, silently agonizing.

"Please," Mark rasps, "stop." He clenches his fists at his sides. "Roger – please, just don't say things you don't mean."

Roger shakes his head. "What would it take for me to prove to you that I mean it?" he asks.

But he knows.

So that is how Roger's lips find their way to Mark's, to those of the struggling filmmaker as he squirms and twists and writhes and tries to get away, to protest, to tell Roger that he could never love someone like _him_, like Mark, who one would think is so loathsome (from his obvious self-hatred) that he might want to really consider what he is saying. After a brief moment, however, Roger's chest molds into Mark's, and the latter finds himself almost sinking into the kiss, melting in it, drowning…

"Do you believe me now?" Roger demands.

Mark quivers.

There is silence.

One of the two sharply intakes breath – it is unclear which – in the split second before Mark murmurs, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"And do you love me?" Roger presses.

_God. Romance is definitely not my forte._

Mark shudders as though struck by an inexplicable cold wind in August. "Yes," he says, and he begins planting kisses of such magnitude all over Roger's chest that Mimi, a floor below, is left to wonder exactly why her ceiling is squeaking.

"Don't hate yourself, Mark," Roger whispers, lying on his back an hour later, staring at the cracks in his ceiling.

Mark shakes his head. "I never did," he tells Roger in a low whisper. "I hated what I could never have."

"And do you have it now?" Roger asks, a tiny smile creeping onto his face.

With a laugh, Mark replies, "Definitely."

The two exchange a chaste kiss before falling asleep.


End file.
